XXXV111 INTRODUCTION. 



the more scientific and defensible presentment of utili- 

 tarianism, then the reflection is forced upon us that 

 certain celebrated formulas, such as " the greatest happi- 

 ness of the greatest number," and the " love and service 

 of humanity," which have made much noise in these 

 latter years, must be either henceforth dropped, as moral 

 mottoes referring to delusive because impracticable goals, 

 or else must be narrowed to more modest and possible 

 aims, with a corresponding abatement as well in their 

 dignity as in our obligation to follow them. For if the 

 claims, the happiness, the well-being of self, must come 

 first, both in the order of time and of reason ; if the 

 struggle for existence in some form, however disguised, 

 is, as implied by Spencer, inseparable from all life, it 

 clearly follows that the happiness of others, even of those 

 nearest us, must give place, and can only come second ; 

 while the happiness of the greatest number should be no 

 aim of ordinary people at all, and can only be an aim to 

 the statesman or even the most autocratic ruler within 

 the limits of his own nation or race, and even within 

 further limits determined for him by social facts and 

 forces which he must take into account. 



There is, in reality, opposition wide as the poles be- 

 tween the new and the old utilitarianism, between the 

 humanitarian ethics of Mill, which makes the happiness 

 of the species its aim, and the evolution ethics of Spencer, 

 which, although it assigns a place to the facts of sym- 

 pathy and sacrifice, nevertheless recognizes " the struggle 

 for existence " as the most universal and necessary, the 

 most controlling and comprehensive generalization ; and if 

 we elect to stand by the utilitarian creed at all, we must 

 further make choice between these its divergent forms, 

 or else we must make some compromise between them. 



It is with the utilitarianism of Spencer that we shall 



